My Beloved: A Thin Love Novella(3)
Kona slipped up behind her, his arms around her waist before Keira could lift her fingers to the velvet box in the center of the page. Blinking, she couldn’t quite believe what she was looking at. That black box meant so much, it meant forever, yet even now that part of her that waited for the other shoe to drop wouldn’t let go of the expectation of disappointment. She tried to clear it from her mind. She tried to hope for the question she knew Kona wanted to ask, but that negative, niggling voice remained loud, persistent. It told her not to expect anything.
“I’m sixteen years late,” Kona said, moving the hair off her shoulder. He smelled mildly of sweat with the slightest hint of coffee on his breath. Keira wouldn’t have cared if he smelled of moth balls. He pulled her tight against him, sliding his hands under hers to take the box away from the book, lifting its velvet lid. “I wanted to do this a long time ago, baby. Every day since the second I realized I loved you.”
A quick jerk of her head, a glance over her shoulder and Keira’s vision was blurred by the burning moisture in her eyes. She couldn’t speak, didn’t know what she was supposed to say. She didn’t know if she’d be capable of much more than a nod of her head.
When Keira only continued to blink at Kona, silent, eyes rounding, he took the ring from the box and gently pushed it onto her finger. Her eyes followed the movement, but she was still left dumb, too shocked to make any coherent thoughts organize enough to form speech.
“Be my always, Keira?” What he said was simple. It was sweet. It was Kona saying little and meaning so much with four insignificant words. Separately they were nothing. Together, they held everything that they could ever hope to be.
She’d never heard him speak so gently. She’d never seen Kona sit so still, but his voice was small, so unlike the huge man he was. His expression was guarded, anxious and it took her several moments before she realized he expected an answer. Still she could not move, waiting for it all to vanish.
Then, Kona blew a breath past his lips and his grip around her waist tightened. “Baby, you gotta say something before my heart beats out of my chest. I’m holding my breath here.”
Keira’s throat felt raw and sore, she cleared it and finally glanced down at the ring, a beautiful square cut diamond on a simple platinum band that sparkled against the lamp light.
At last she managed to speak. “I only have one question.” She brought her gaze back to Kona, spotted the way his eyebrows moved up, as though he wasn’t sure what she’d say. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is this my signed copy?”
Keira watched Kona’s eyes moving across her face, at first confused, but then he must have realized what she was saying and his mouth relaxed as a smile inched against his lips and he released his held breath. “Do you think I’m crazy? I like my balls right where they are.” When she arched one eyebrow at him, he laughed, moving her around to face him. “Second hand bookstore in Atlanta. I know better than to mess with your books.”
No one had ever loved her like Kona. He had shown an introverted eighteen year old what passion was, how it could fill you up, make you soar. He had given her laughter and love and as much of himself as he could, when he couldn’t give her his all. He had given her Ransom. She knew she could spend a lifetime looking into those dark eyes, kissing those soft lips and it would never be enough.
“Well?” he said nudging her with his hand. “What do you say? You wanna marry me, Wildcat?”
“Yeah.” She erased the doubt, the dread from her mind. It didn’t belong there anymore. “Okay.”
Keira had learned several things about Kona Hale, the man. He’d matured, changed and though he reminded her every day of the twenty year old she’d fallen in love with all those years ago, now he was more confident, more driven. Back then, Kona hadn’t known what he wanted and even when he did, he always had a problem finding and keeping it. Now, when Kona wanted something, whatever it was, he didn’t wait for it. The difference between Claiborne-Prosper University, twenty year old Kona and the one using her shoulder as a pillow on the plane they were on, was that Man-Kona went out and got whatever the hell he wanted. At that moment, he wanted her. Well, he wanted her standing in front of an altar saying “I do”.
“I like Riley-Hale.” Ransom’s voice was low as he leaned against the armrest on the plane, head inclined toward Keira.
Kona was snoring softly, slouched against her, his phone forgotten in his lap as they flew toward Hawaii. When he’d asked her to marry him two days before, Keira had thought that surely, they would have months to plan. She didn’t want anything overwhelming, just Kona standing in front of her with a minister blessing their marriage and a hurried family dinner so they could get on with the honeymoon. But Kona, as he’d said repeatedly over the past forty-eight hours, had waited “sixteen years to marry the woman of my dreams. We’re doing this big and we’re doing it now.”
Kona the man got what he wanted so Keira didn’t fuss when he stayed on his phone for two hours straight making plans with his family back in Hawaii. He wanted Ransom to meet everyone, all those people who Kona had been telling tales about for months. And he wanted to show off his son. So Keira let him plan whatever he wanted. She let him make phone calls and direct his aunties and cousins on venues and photographers. Keira didn’t care about any of that—he was all she wanted.